Report Linux Fair Booth

Chemnitz Linux Tage 3-4.3.2007, Germany

People involved

Iván Villanueva, Jan Husar

Abstract

No Software Patents FFII booth at the Chemnitzer Linux Tage, a middle size Linux fair with about 2500 visitors. The booth had the aim of bringing awareness for the attendees, 48 community project presentations and 14 companies.

Verdict

FFII booth was situated at one of the two main paths from entrance to the workshop and presentation zone, which means half of the people were passing directly around us. We approached almost all of the people stopping by to read “Your webshop is patented” poster and “Your desktop is patented”. Almost half of the people were aware of the patents problematic but all of them didn't know what is going on right now. Some of the people had no idea about patents (for example Fedora core developers) or they thought the patents war is over. Promotion of FFII and its projects, personal involvement, company resource support, donations or donations of personal actions, direct impact to the open source community and the business were discussed along the way.

Overall status

• We handed over 260 flyers, which were prepared, together with a web page, specially for Germany, by Andreas Rudert, Stephan Uhlmann and Iván Villanueva.
• We had personal talks with about 70 people. About 10 of them pledged for support. One developer of AMD said he is going to donate 500 EUR.
• We handed over 15 petitions of patentfrei against software patents. 4 of them were signed and given back to us in the fair.
• We were interviewed by RadioTux. The interview was transmitted and is available online.
• Many of our visitors will think of becoming a member, 1 gave us his address to become one.
• The FFII is still well known in the Linux community and our booth helped to keep the this memory.

Future plan

Personal handling of visitors had the most successful impact. Better marketing materials are needed for future actions. Fund-raising via selling marketing materials seems to us very apropiate, as for instance the FSF does, such as t-shirts, pens, stickers, posters, etc.. Ivan and Jan are thinking of starting a marketing project for the internal needs of the FFII.

Overall costs

Pending

Impact evaluation: (donations, membership, web statistics)